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Chapter 1: Main Squad
Briefing Content GM The empty halls of the subterranean base were ringing with new life. The formerly silent machines in Engineering were now alive, and working on getting up to date with the rest of the world. The hum of computers filled the halls of the Laboratories, with scientist and doctors alike working to recover any lost information. Even the HoloGlobe, recovered from the old base, came back to life in an exuberant blue sheen, as if it had never been shut anyhow. Central Commander Bradley oversaw this revival of sorts and chuckled. XCOM was returning to life, and after almost 20 years, the new base seemed so similar to the last one. However, Bradley reminded himself of the new changes, as he passed the hall of memorial, showing the names of five of the planet's greatest heroes. Main Squad died in that last, epic struggle in Greenland, and that lead to XCOM's unfortunate..."break." Even still, the Elerium Wars between petty nations lead humanity to be weaker than before the alien invasion. In the end, humans lost the power they abused. Two armed guards walked into Bradley's office. "Sir, those prospects you asked for are arriving shortly. I'd say about...75% are here already, though." "Excellent, have them gather in the Briefing room, and I'll go to greet them personally," Bradley responded, rubbing the thick beard he had grown in the past 20 years. He then turned to the shadows of the room, and asked, "Well, Commander, Main Squad is rebuilding itself. How do you think we'll fare against our new foe?" "Our new foe," replied a voice, "Is nothing but the ghost of something that gave us nothing but trouble before." Out of the shadows walked an old man, in his mid to late 50's, with graying hair, and an iron will about him. He walked slowly with his cane to where Bradley was standing and asked, "You remember EXALT, don't you?" (OOC: OK, guys. Just make a post about your character being summoned into the Situation Room in the Operations block to have a talk about their purpose here. Thanks!) ---- Leo Having been here for at least a day, Leo was still suffering from a bit of shell shock over the whole experience of being in XCOM. Never had he expected the organization to be in possession of a massive facility like this, and much less their possession of all this advanced tech that he saw during his orientation. Not only that, the personnel in the base seem to have come from all over the world and was not dominated by any specific nationality. It seemed almost too surreal, for the former Navy SEAL member. After the tour ended outside the door of his personal quarters, the soldier instead headed back to the hangar, guided by the helpful signs placed all over the base, to move his vehicle in the long term parking area of the base garage. Not that he didn't trust the base personnel with his prized truck, it was just that Leo would feel so much better in knowing that he himself had handled the whole matter personally. After he had returned to his quarters, and was in the process of getting himself and the place sorted out. Leo was then summoned to the Armory, for outfitting purposes. Since the man was formerly of the heavy support position in his squad, he was similarly assigned the same role in XCOM, and thus spent some time getting kitted out in his new suit of XCOM only power armor, as well as XCOM proprietary weaponry. The soldier wasn't a total newbie to power armor, having spent time in a few, during his former military time. But the reality was that power armor was now a rarity, since the Elerium and Xeno alloys needed to manufacture and power these advanced armors was all but gone, for all intents and purposes, and every nation was hoarding their dwindling stores of xeno materials. By the time he was back in his room, it was practically night time, Canadian time, and Leo was much too tired for anything else. But despite a relaxing hot shower, the man tossed and turned in his new bed, unable to fall asleep for some reason. As such, he made a face, before reluctantly changing into his off duty XCOM trooper kit and taking to wandering aimlessly about the base for the next couple of hours. Fortified with the odd drink and snack from the vending machines dotting the base, Leo then received another summons arrived for him to grace the Rec room with his appearance. Turning back, the soldier made his way back into the warren of corridors and elevators, before arriving back at the door of the situation room, still looking fairly energetic, despite the lack of sleep. Entering the premises, it appeared that he was the only one in the room for the moment. Taking a seat on the leather chair, which creaked slightly at the man's weight as he sat down, Leo took a gulp from his Cola, while wondering who else was in this particular squad, and hoping that at the very least, he could get along with them. There was nothing worse than a badly made up squad to mess things up, even before their first sortie. Natalie Natalie walked into the room, wearing a grey jacket with her cybertool on her left arm, trying to mask the exhaustion from several weeks of intensive training. She wasn't a soldier by nature, so going through a crash course to help turn her into one had been particularly draining on her. As she sat down Natalie tried to stifle a yawn, being called to a meeting in the middle of the night didn't exactly help but her regular sleep pattern had been thrown so far out of synch it probably didn't matter. She sleepily put her tablet on the table, flicking closed a game of 2048 and opening up relevant notes. Seeing that not everyone had arrived yet Natalie swivelled her chair around to view the large screen on one side of the room monitoring global communications. I guess that's why they call it the Situation Room. Rather impressive. She raised her left arm, waving the cybertool at the screen, seconds later a smaller version appeared on the tool's screen letting her read through some of the feeds XCOM we're currently monitoring. Nail Still tired from sleeping late, Nail droopily walked into the situation room and plummeted right into a chair, too tired to really do anything. However, his eyes were already glued onto the giant hologram, almost like how he would stare at the TV for hours for no reason back home. To be honest he hoped there would be a mission of some type. Once he finished his training he was already bored out of his mind, having explored most of the building, Nail had nothing else to do other than just sleep....again. As Nail yawned, the sleepy man looked around the room and noticed the two others just waiting for something to happen. "Soo.....anyone know why we're here?" Nail said as he started to fall asleep. Marcus Marcus silently entered the room, sitting down in a chair. Unlike the others, who were surprised at the Situation Room's impressive screen, Marcus viewed it with a jarring familiarity. He eyed each of his companions with unease, yet also with an eye for the condition of the others in the room. Looking at the exhausted other members of XCOM, Marcus reached into his pack and pulled some pharmaceutical supplies. Counting three identical containers, he passed two of them to the woman and the man focused on the hologram. "Helps with staying on point, mentally and physically," he explained, his lower baritone voice echoing in the silence. Looking over to the obviously former solider, he threw him the same container, but with silence. After that, he rummaged through his bag some more, found a small book, and opened it to his current page, continuing his reading. Leo Having watched the others enter the room, Leo was intrigued by the personnel present. So far, he had observed a woman enter the room, armed with a tablet, among other technological toys on her person, a rather tall male of Asian descent, and what appeared to be a middle aged male of a fairly robust build. Given the hour, it was no particular surprise that most of them were tired to an extent, with the Asian looking like he was going to drop off to sleep at any moment, while the female took to studying some notes she had brought along. The other fellow, oddly enough, passed out what appeared to be some kind of medical supplies, while saying as much that it would help keep them awake. While grateful for the item, Leo pocketed the compact container instead, preferring to only use it as a last resort. Not that he had anything against the drug per se, but it was probably best to wait and see what developed next, before deciding if he ought to use the pick-me-up. The four of them continued to remain in their seats, with the Asian nodding off, while the other two were engrossed in their notes and book respectively. Leo was tempted to play a game on his smartphone, but decided against it, for fear of giving off a poor impression to whoever was going to be in charge of them. Finishing off his cola, the brawny soldier simply placed the empty can on an adjacent seat, intending to dispose of the container on his way out later. But for now, the soldier simply continued to observe his surroundings, while pondering as to the exact reason for the summons. Despite the hour, the place was still being manned by the graveyard shift, and they gave the impression that they were just as competent as the other shifts in rotation. Nail "Uh, Thanks.." Nail said to the person who just came in. He examined the container with quite a bit of skeptitism. He didn't know what it was, and really didn't trust it's capabilities. Quickly, Nail glanced over to the one that gave the medicine to him to see if he was looking at him. Since he was too busy reading his book to notice the people around him, Nail just stuffed the container inside his pocket and immidiately went back to sleep, waiting for something to happen. Natalie "I'm good, thanks though." replied Natalie, pocketing the box. "Reminds me of my student days and the all-nighters I pulled to finish my essays, a couple over-caffeinated lattes and I'm back in business." Not your typical medic. she thought, observing Marcus. But then again I don't think "typically" applies to anything here anymore. She looked around the room, making a quick head count of the assembled personnel. "So... Is the gang all here then or are we still waiting on someone? I had some armour modifications I was in the middle of trying out and I don't think it should be left unattended for too long." Natalie had begun to realise the distinct military edge surrounding two of the men, clearly both of them were skilled soldiers and probably could easily outmatch her in a fight. The sleeping guy at the table remained a bit of a mystery to her, considering he wasn't saying a lot. "You know, I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Natalie, or Nat I suppose." she said, giving a small shy wave. Marcus "I know," came the reply from the man with the book, silently turning the page. "Read your theory on shared Elerium. Interesting, but would never work. Elerium is too rare nowadays to be shared anyhow. Besides that, the armor specs you work on look reasonably useful. Especially for Mr. Kent here," Marcus continued, motioning to the sitting man. He added, "Your file was an interesting read as well, Mr. Kent." Looking up from his book, Marcus noticed the sleeping man. Sighing, he placed down his book and began to rummage in his backpack. Pulling out a small, empty container, he threw it at the sleeping man's head. "Stay alert. The commander could walk in any moment. Do you want to look like you could care less, Mr. Rajit?" Marcus sighed, before going back to his book. "If this is the finest humanity has to offer, some of us have to shape up a little." Marcus started to read again, before adding, "You can trust the pills. I'm a pharmacist on my off time. I know my meds." Nail "Doc, I prefer to be called Nail." the drowsy said, another yawn let loose from his open mouth. "But sure, I'll take your meds." As the man scrutinized the container carefully, he heasitatingly opened it and swallowed the pills whole. He remembered as a kid that he never like taking medicine, especially when the maids at his palace back home would force feed them too him. However the ones he really disliked was the cough syrup. "When is the commander getting here anyway?" Leo With the introductions being made, Leo was a touch surprised to see that the slightly older male was aware of who they were, not to mention their respective information also. How did he get access to that information, Leo thought to himself, having assuming that their personal information was eyes only for selected personnel. For this man to be aware of their skills and achievenments, clearly that fellow was more aware as to what might be going on. Trained to be naturally suspicious and careful, the ex-SEAL briefly narrowed his eyes at the older man, intended to be a bit cautious of him, at least for the moment. Of Natalie, he was intrigued to find such a technically gifted member on the team. Which lead to the assumption that this particularly team makeup was going to something of a all rounder. As for the Asian, Rajit, Leo had no idea what to make of the lanky person. All he could see at this point was a rather tired fellow. "So what else do you know about this place," Leo asked, directing the question at Marcus. "You seem to be knowing more than you're letting on."